Radical Gratitude

I was reading in a Psychology Today Blog post by Charley Wininger how he suggests couples see the bigger picture when there is trouble in paradise. I liked his solution because as I thought about what he had his couples doing, I thought his solution can be applied elsewhere.  I found it interesting that his advice is not only for troubled couples, but should be applied to EVERYTHING that happens to you. He writes:

A married couple seeing me for counseling a while back asked, “What do we do when things have been going great, and then we have a fight and suddenly everything looks bleak again? How do we get back to the good feeling?” The answer I gave them was not what they expected.

“When you find yourselves losing all perspective,” I said,  “stop and take a look at all you’ve got: The two of you are alive. You have your health! You have each other. Plus a beautiful child who’s also healthy! A roof over your head. Clothes to wear and plenty of food to eat. You happen to be living in the most abundantly blessed nation the world has ever known. Why, compared with the other 6.8 billion other souls on the planet, you’re both sitting on top of the world!

“So next to all this, how important was that thing you were arguing about?”

The following session they came in reporting how useful this had been for them that week.

I call this approach Radical Gratitude.

If you want to read the entire post, you can find it here.

Be Well.